Thread: Drozd/ERA
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Old 12-28-2021, 06:54 PM
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Originally Posted by Raellus View Post
Drozd was developed in the late 1970s, and operational during the Cold War (c.1981, according the linked article).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drozd

Apparently, it was combat tested in Afghanistan but the army rejected it as being too expensive. The Naval Infantry adopted it anyway, because it was still cheaper to fit Drozd to its existing T-55s than it was to replace the older tanks with T-72s (which were also too heavy for some of the Soviet's hovercraft landing vessels). I read somewhere else that there were some issues with the Drozd system being damaged by salt water exposure, which is one of the reasons it was eventually removed from said Naval Infantry T-55s and, IIRC, replaced with conventional reactive armor. The Naval Infantry ended up getting some T-72s as well, as bigger hovercraft to carry them entered service.

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Drozd was replaced by Kontakt-1 on the Naval Infantry T-55s. Some T-55s later got Kontakt-5 (the T-55M5), but I'm not sure Naval Infantry ever got them. Kontakt-1 was a light ERA (1.2 tonnes, +80 AV vs. HEAT only), while Kontakt-5 is heavy (2.8 tonnes, +100 AV vs. Heat and +60 AV vs. KE).

To answer Paul's question, in the T2K timeline there would be Drozd and Arena for the active kill systems. Trophy's too new (early production was 2007, with acceptance in 2009 and first combat use in 2011), as are Afghanit, Iron Curtain, Iron Fist, and pretty much everything else other than Drozd and Arena.

On the ERA side, Blazer, Kontakt-1, and Kontakt-5 all entered service in the 1980s. For ones I haven't statted up, there's also Czechoslovakia's DYNA for the T-72M4Cz (I'm currently away from my books, but the manufacturer claims it increases effective armor thickness by 30% against KE and 120-170% against HEAT if anyone wants to run numbers). Other ERA systems (Relikt, Malachit, ARAT, ERAWA, ERAWA-2, CERAWA, Nozh, Duplets, SidePRO-CE, CLARA) are too new for the Twilight War.
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